


I Didn't Know You Could Read.

by sorrens



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pining, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, crowley's a bit of a cranky bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-19 16:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19136584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: In which Crowley finally picks up a book. Or an attempt to share common interests now that the world hasn't ended.





	I Didn't Know You Could Read.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title taken from the I C O N I C Malfoy line in Chamber of Secrets.

The distinct lack of world-ending, apocalyptic, earth-shattering catastrophes at hand had seen Crowley and Aziraphale quickly fall in to a tedious routine. It generally went something like this: Crowley would visit the angel at the bookshop, have a few drinks, start a heated argument over nonsense*, go to the park, argue with the ducks, speed angrily around London in the Bentley before returning to his apartment and venting to his plants. It was always a busy, jam-packed, hellish day somewhat reminiscent of entering in to the tenth year of married life with a mortgage still in the picture**.  So when he turned up at the bookshop one morning to find Aziraphale busy actually helping customers, he grabbed a drink and decided to look around the shelves a bit himself.

Let’s get one thing straight, Crowley didn’t like books. Like the cliched jock in every high school movie, he swore upon his life (essence, who knows anymore) that books were for nerds. He’d read a sum total of one (1) book in his long existence, and it wasn’t the bible if that’s what you were thinking, in 2015 he’d caved and skimmed Kim K’s photo book “Selfish” in an attempt to work out how she had seemingly more success setting people on the path downstairs by merely existing than he had after 6000 years of effort.

He ran his free hand along dusty volumes until a title caught his eye. 

Brave New World.

It made him smile. _It was quite, wasn’t it_. He pulled out the tattered copy. In the cover page a dedication was scrawled _“To Aziraphale, brightener of worlds. Aldous”_

“Reading?”

Crowley nearly jumped out of his snakeskin at the incredulous voice behind him.

He turned to find Aziraphale watching him, arms crossed and a knowing smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“I can read.” Crowley spat out icily.

“Calm down, I wasn’t saying you couldn’t.” He teased.

“You know what?” Crowley raised his voice slightly. If there were any customers still lurking in the shelves they would’ve probably sensed the ensuing domestic and scrambled for cover. “I’m going to take this. I’m going to read it. And I’m not coming back until I’ve finished it.” He shrugged defiantly in a serves-you-right kind of way. _See this angel? This is me being my own person._ *** 

He didn’t wait for whatever Aziraphale was going to say next rather, stomped towards the door.

“ _Reading?_ ” He mimicked as the door slammed behind him, leaving Aziraphale standing amongst the rows at a loss.

  

* Usually a game of sorting current celebrities in to Heaven/Hell was enough to tip them over the edge (for some reason Az was committed to claiming Neil Gaiman, “you’ve already got Pratchett, Angel, you can’t keep both for yourself!”)

** Crowley couldn’t technically claim credit for mortgages, or student loans for that matter, but when Hell started liking them so much of course he took the commendation. 

***Never mind that his supposed attempt at autonomy was predicated on a stubborn inability to recognise that he wanted to be able to share interests with the angel.

 

* * *

 

 

Crowley had been a bit cagey since the end of the world. Azriaphale found it best to let him go off on his spiteful tangents. Once he got tired of stomping and yelling and purposefully ignoring Aziraphale, he’d come back as if nothing had happened. Basically, as Aziraphale saw it, the lack of the end of the world had seen Crowley dissolve into the behaviour consistent with a teenage girl who’d been denied tickets to her favourite boy band. _Maybe Crowley had always idolised meeting the horsemen and was now a bit disillusioned they weren’t quite up to the hype, no that was silly._ Despite being behind on his taxes — for the first time in centuries mind you (hey, it was the end of the world cut an angel some slack) — Aziraphale found himself sitting back in an armchair, wondering whether Crowley actually intended to read the book he’d taken with him. As evidenced by recent history (ie. The last 4000 years when reading material had been available on Earth), Crowley was about as likely to open a book as let someone drive his Bentley*. Although, in the angel’s experience, it was equally as likely that his stubbornness would force him to read it, lest Aziraphale found out otherwise.

Outside the bookshop grew dark and overcast, and Aziraphale realised he’d been craning his neck to see if Crowley was returning. He had mentioned briefly in the passing, some 14 years ago, that it was one of his all time favourite books. Did Crowley remember that? Or was it just luck that he chose that book from the thousands that filled the shop’s shelves.

 

Crowley carried the book like it was a baby rabbit, wrapping it up in his jacket and cradling it in the small of his arm as he made his way back to his flat. Books were good for a lot of things, in Crowley’s opinion. For starters, they made excellent fire starters. Plus, if you were strategic about it, and pulled out a handful of pages at a time, you might even get a few fires out of it.** But this time was the exception. Azriaphale was gushing about Brave New World*** a decade or so ago, in a conversation that Crowley had pretended not to be at all interested in.

 “ _Quite enigmatic really, humans._ ” Aziraphale had said, but not with his usual tone of endearment. Rather, one of abject fear. It was a new shade for the angel, and Crowley was instantly intrigued. Crowley had always seen visual media as more of his territory. Sins were reality TV, pornography and Dance Moms****. But, as he settled down in his throne to his new book, just because it wasn’t his territory doesn’t mean he wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it. Over the years he’d gradually begun to enjoy feeding ducks, drinking hot tea, and eating angel cake— They weren’t something his side had thought up, but when you had the right compan—

_Shut up!_

He slammed the book against his head in an attempt to divert his thoughts. It just made it even more difficult to focus on the page. He needed a drink.

 

 

* Let the records show that Aziraphale was allowed to sit behind the wheel one (1) time, in late 1977, before Crowley nearly had an anxiety attack. The keys weren’t even in the ignition. Nonetheless, Crowley still considered it a close call.

** The entropy of a bible was pretty pathetic. The pages were ridiculously thin and the psalms seemed to exert a dampening effect wherein their pages refused to ignite. Crowley recommends an unabridged copy of Les Miserables, or anything by Charles Bukowski.

*** He was also gushing about Aldous Huxley himself, but Crowley had purposefully blocked that out.

**** Crowley spent far too long hanging out on the set. Not creating any havoc (it seemed to naturally create itself) but picking up pointers from the dance teacher to help him strike fear in to his fernery.

 

* * *

 

How long does it take a demon to read a book? Interesting question. There’s not enough case studies to make a reliable inference about this, few (if any) demons have actually even touched books since their invention. They weren’t imbrued with holy water or anything. It was just… _uncool_ , right? Somehow, Crowley turned the final page of A Brave New World before the sun had even begun to set. His body was sprawled awkwardly over the throne and he stood up stiffly. Indeed, he’d all but forgotten to get that drink.

“WHAT?” Crowley was having a bit of trouble digesting everything he’d just read. It was stirring up things, many emotions, that eclipsed the mere smugness he got from watching trashy TV. Perhaps the smugness stemmed from pride, of owning, of being responsible for, the train wreck that was reality TV. Rather than being the puppeteer, Crowley was suddenly himself being tugged in every direction as he sought to make sense of the dystopia he just entered. Caste systems, social order, even the right to be unhappy. It was unnerving and yet the bleak future was altogether not unlike the strange world he’d slowly fallen in love with. Was this a chaos humans were capable of?*

Within minutes he was furiously knocking on the door of the bookshop. The blinds were pulled down. The ‘closed’ sign was out. _Dammit._ Aziraphale must have gone out for the evening.

In fact, Aziraphale was still sitting in the armchair, now bathed in semi-darkness, thinking and hold a cup of stone cold tea. The hammering on the door startled him.

“Bother, bother,” Tea dripped over the rug. He set the china down and peered out the window.

“Come back to throw that at me have you?” He said impatiently, as he watched Crowley jump up and down on the doorstep like it was consecrated ground.

“Let. Me. In,” not quite a snake-like hiss, but more a whiny teenager. Aziraphale unbolted the door and Crowley stumbled over the threshold.

“Have you been drinking?” The angel eyed him suspiciously. “You’re… different.”**

“Holy SHIT.” Crowley was so distracted he’d forgotten to put on his glasses to leave his flat, his yellow eyes flashed with amazement as he thrust the book in to Aziraphale’s open arms. Suddenly, the angel knew the source of the frenetic energy.

“You actually read it?” He cried in amazement, realising all too late that this might trigger the reappearance of snarky Crowley. But Crowley didn’t notice, or if he did for once he didn’t dwell on it.

“It was… just…” Crowley gaped helplessly. Aziraphale beamed and cast the book aside, much to the demon’s confusion.

“Wha—“

“Did you like it?” Asked Aziraphale softly, stepping closer to him, eyes searching.

“Like it?!” Crowley spluttered “It’s… no…of course I bloody well didn’t like it. It’s more fucked up than anything I could plan for humanity.”

Strangely, Aziraphale was smiling. 

“It’s not quite what you were expecting, maybe?”

“Of course not, I didn’t realise that books gave you…” he waved his hands violently around in the air “… feelings. I thought they were just good, in the same way that bribery is bad. They were something your side had claimed. They had to be happy or somethi—“ he trailed off pathetically. Aziraphale laughed.

“ _Oh my dear_ , books are not good or evil. They’re every shade of grey in between. In some ways they’re more nuanced than reality itself can capture at the best of times. Sure, heaven thinks they’re responsible for books, but they’ve got no control over what goes in to them. The murderers and criminals and pessimists will always write their story down. The good is in being able to experience them. To read them like one might browse a catalogue for a new sofa, and appreciate the message without actually going out yourself and _… murdering someone._ ” It was his turn to trail off.

Crowley stepped closer, until he and the angel stood mere centimetres apart. Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest at the closeness and he had to resist leaning in further.

“I want to read another one,” Crowley’s eyes sparkled in much the same way they did which temptation was afoot. Aziraphale blushed slightly.

“How about Catch-22, yes, I think that’s quite your style of humour.” Aziraphale broke the eye contact to bustle around pulling books from shelves. A few minutes later, the two of them were curled up on either side of the lounge with Catch-22 and Jane Eyre, respectively. There was a comfortable silence as each began turning pages. Crowley cleared his throat slightly and, every so vaguely leaned in closer to the angel beside him.

 

* He stuck by his insistence that the next Armageddon would be pitting humans against the forces of heaven and hell. It seemed tenuous at best. But Huxley had shown humans in a light that even made Crowley’s skin crawl. Wasn’t he supposed to be spreading the disaccord? Why did this frighten him? Perhaps he was spending too much time with the angel. 

** Wired, manic, all-over-the-place, panicked, ~~sexy in a disastrous way~~. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to browse my other Good Omens fics. I've written a few AUs, some angst, some crack, some questionable use of internet humour, basically ineffable husbands in many flavours.


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